D&D General I’m Trying to Love D&D Again—and I’ve Got Some Complaints. Young Grognard posting.

[doctorbadwolf]

I laugh when people act like this is some newfangled expectation.

I watched my friend Sam beat up a guy who kept calling her Samantha after she told him like a dozen times her name was Sam, and no one chastised her for it.

In 1997.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'm going to guess that the people who "demand" to be called by their preferred pronouns have learned that doing so is a pretty effective way to weed out the jerks by seeing who balks at such an innocent "demand".

Yeeeup.

Or they were perfectly polite about it. The first two times.

 

[AlViking]

... not watch you try to score with imaginary NPCs...

So I can't ever play a bard?

 

[Clint_L]

Two games ago a player literally had her bard try to score with a cute halfling she met...

 

[Desdichado]

"I've got a lot of problems with you people! Now, you're gonna hear about it."

Uh... is there a tl;dr version?

 

[AlViking]

Two games ago a player literally had her bard try to score with a cute halfling she met...

So you're saying they are playing a highly reserved bard?

 

[mamba]

There are many things that are part of you as a person, you don't share or 'demand' at first introduction, if ever. Sorry, but I don't really care about your sexual orientation, nor do I really care about your gender expression.

maybe you would care if most people consistently misidentified you and would start letting them know what you actually are…

 

[Umbran]

There are many things that are part of you as a person, you don't share or 'demand' at first introduction, if ever. Sorry, but I don't really care about your sexual orientation, nor do I really care about your gender expression.

So, I used to say, "I don't care," and what I meant was that I want my game to be open and appealing to people of any race, color, creed, gender, or sexual orientation. None of those things are bars to being at my table - what matters is that you're a decent person, and that your playstyle works well with the collected people there.

But, I learned that I need to be specific about that, or I am at risk of saying, "I don't care about things that are central to your lived experience, that often have a negative impact on your life."

While the former is a laudable goal, the latter... is pretty rude.

Like, I care if there's a woman at my table, because there are different steps necessary to make her feel safe and welcome. F'rex, there are common expressions of sexism that I'm going to want to be more mindful of, because I know that as a guy I'm a little blind to them.

 

[Morrus]

Hey folks, I don't really care to host a lengthy thread where a couple of people dig in about how they dislike pronouns for 80 pages. Not only is it repetitive, predictable, and tedious, it is--more importantly--not in line with our inclusivity rules. If you want to have that conversation, I'd prefer you had it somewhere else. Feel free to discuss other aspects of the OP.

 

[Charlaquin]

I'm going to guess that the people who "demand" to be called by their preferred pronouns have learned that doing so is a pretty effective way to weed out the jerks by seeing who balks at such an innocent "demand".

Mostly it’s just, a lot of us know people’s first guess is likely to be wrong. Rather than waiting to be referred to incorrectly and then correcting it, it is less disruptive to lead with how to refer to us correctly.

Is it “demanding” to be called by your name to tell it to someone at the start of a conversation instead of waiting for someone to guess a random name first and then tell them what they should have said?